The No. 1 team in the nation performed like the No. 1 team in the nation.
The Mountain View High School girls' cross-country team ran like no other team has before at the Birmingham Invitational, shattering course and meet records to easily outdistance the best teams in the South.Promoters had tried to get as many of the nation's Top 10 teams to come as possible and paid all the expenses for Mountain View to help entice other teams. But except for No. 4 nationally ranked Brookwood High School out of Snellville, Ga. and some other top 25 southern schools the other highly ranked schools didn't show didn't show, the most notable absentees being the ranked California teams.
But it may not have made much difference.
"They (Mountain View runners) really blew the doors off everybody," said Ron Ingram, a reporter who covered the meet for The Birmingham News. Ingram estimated there were more than 400 girls in the race. "There were some pretty good teams here. They really blew the field away," he said.
The team total of 16 was easily the best score in the nine-year history of the meet, and first-place Amy Allen's 12:04 finish over the hilly two-mile course broke the course record set last year by Alabama's state champion, Margaret Robinson, who finished fifth Saturday to prevent Mountain View from a perfect sweep. They set a course record for girls and for best score ever.
"She really won with ease. She was the first one off the line and never did give up the lead," Ingram said of Allen's performance.
The Bruins finished 1, 2, 3, 4, 6 to total 16 points. The order of finish was Allen, Juliette Stone (12:23), Kristen Nuttall (12:33), Jenny Bybee (12:38) and Heather Frushour (12:58). The Mountain View non-scorers (the top five finishers for each team are counted in the team total) finished ahead of most of the other competitors, with Camie Casper taking ninth in 13:20 and Tanya Thomas 13th in 13:42. Another girl who made the trip, Emily Marek, finished fourth in a separate race in 13:28.
The second-place team was a distant second, Mobile St. Paul of Alabama, with 102 points. Mountain Brook, Ala., the nation's 15th-ranked team, was third with 133 points, 4th was McGill Tueller, Fla. with 144 and 5th was No. 4 Brookwood with 154.
Other ranked teams mentioned by Mountain View coach David Houle included No. 7 Eisenhower High School out of Yakima, Wash. and No. 19 West Potomac High School out of Alexandria, Va.
But Houle said a couple of the Eisenhower runners were ill.
"We were nervous, but it went really well," said Houle.
"The girls ran the races of their lives. I never would have believed we could run that way," he said. The meet director was astonished by the performance of the Mountain View girls, Houle said. "He said, `Now everyone understands why you're No. 1.' "